11 Reasons Why I Absolutely Love Your Blog

I am so incredibly tired of all those blog posts out there that list the reasons why people hate your blog. Do you know what I’m talking about? They’re all over Pinterest, and they condescend the living heck out of just about every blog on the planet with titles like “7 reasons why I hate your blog” or “20 reasons why I stopped reading your post.” They’re cynical and incredibly discouraging to both new and seasoned bloggers.

I think it’s time for a little positivity, don’t you? Posts like that break each other down. All of us bloggers are in the same business, so how about we build each other up instead? The same things that people talk about in those types of posts can just as easily be phrased as a positive. So here are all the reasons why I continue reading a blog post.

11 Reasons Why I Love Your Blog

You talk like a human

Your posts are engaging to me on a human level. I can tell that you are using your own voice. Maybe you love to sprinkle in some SAT words, and that’s awesome as long as it’s part of your style. I love big, beautiful words too! Even if you’re not a logophile like me, I can see your personality shine through in your writing. Your content is interesting and makes me feel like you’re talking TO me, not AT me. My number one rule for blogging for profit without selling your soul is to be yourself. As long as I can see the “you” in your posts coming through, I’m happy!

You’re grammatically correct, for the most part

I love that proper grammar matters to you, even if you do make a few mistakes here and there. I know that most of us are solo bloggers. We write AND edit our own stuff, and that’s not an easy feat. As an editor as well as a writer, I often have a hard time proofing my work. My brain knows what I wanted to say and sees it, even if I’ve blatantly left off a letter from a word or something. I bet you struggle with that from time to time too, and I’ll cut you some slack for it.

You don’t bombard me with pop-ups

You really seem to know how annoying those pop-ups are and keep them at a minimum. I recognize that every marketing resource out there stresses that a well-timed newsletter subscription pop-up helps increase your numbers. Hey, I have one too! I have mine set to go off after about 30 seconds of inactivity, that way I’m not in your face while you’re reading. I really love that you don’t have any pop-up ads!

Your ads aren’t intrusive

I realize that you’re trying to earn an income from your blog. Maybe you’re a single mom like me that is trying to keep a roof over her child’s head. Perhaps you’re a working mom who just needs a little extra money to cover all those after-school activities. Whatever the reason, I realize that ads are often a part of that goal. I love that your blog uses them in a reasonable way and that you strive to put them in places where they won’t distract from my reading enjoyment.

Your site doesn’t sing to me!

I absolutely love that nothing automatically starts playing when I open up your blog. I often have a bunch of tabs open at once. When one starts talking or singing to me, I get a little panicky! Where is that coming from? How do I make it stop before it makes Cooper start barking? I do cut you slack when the ad network you belong to sneaks in an auto-playing ad. They do that from time to time, even if you’ve told them not to! So I won’t freak out on you and refuse to come back, but if I can’t figure out how to stop the sound, I may have to leave for a while.

You wait for a reasonable amount of time before trying to get me to “take action.”

I know that you probably read all those same “get more subscribers” posts that I read, so I’m not upset when you ask me to take some sort of action. I want to help you be all that you can be! I just want to get to know you first before I invite you into my inbox. So I totally appreciate it when you time those calls-to-actions to appear after I’ve been around a bit. I really love that you didn’t “lock” your content with some type of “like” box!

Your site design has personality

I don’t mind if your site design doesn’t look like you spent $10k on it. I love that it looks like you personalized a theme a bit to show off your unique style, even if it’s just the colors of your headers and the style of your font. You clearly took the time to get it just right using the resources that you have. Maybe you designed a neat header (that doesn’t take up half the page) or personalized your social media buttons. Perhaps you did get a designer to customize a theme completely. Whatever you did, as long as I can read your posts, I’m happy to be visiting your online home!

I can actually read your posts

I absolutely love that you picked a font that doesn’t make me squint and a color scheme that doesn’t hurt my eyes! You use a crisp white background and a regular font. You save those cute swirly fonts for things like your signature and other areas that don’t affect my ability to read the content. I love when you don’t center all your text or write everything in H2, H3 or H4.

You make it easy for me to get around and see more

Your navigation rocks! I can easily find the menu bar and check out all the other great content that you have to offer. Your search bar is relatively easy to locate, and your sidebar is well-organized. It’s okay that you have a few ads over there, as long as I can find the normal things I expect to see on the sidebar.

I can easily share your content

How wonderful of you to put those social share buttons right at the top AND bottom of your post! Sometimes I know right away that I’m going to love your content and want to save it to my Pinterest to read later. I love that you didn’t make me scroll endlessly to find those buttons. That was very thoughtful of you!

You make it easy for me to find you on social media

I enjoyed your content so much that I want to follow you on social media! Look, there are your follow buttons, right in front of my eyes and easy to locate! You didn’t bury them under an avalanche of ads on the sidebar. Thank you!

Bottom line, I love it when you think of my reading experience and really show off your own personality. I love that you’re trying. It’s hard enough to put yourself out there (especially if you’re secretly super shy like me). Whether you’re a new or seasoned blogger, you have something to offer. Don’t let the negativity of others keep you down.

There will always be people who hate something about your site. I’m sure more than a few someones out there don’t like my site. I’m very thin-skinned and would probably cry if you said you hate me, but trust me, I’ll get over it, and so should you. While we should all strive to continue to better our writing and our online “home,” we should do it for ourselves and not because someone out there decided to write a snippy, condescending list of why they hate us.

What types of things do you love to see on a blog? Share in the comments!

These all ring true with me, especially the grammar and nothing playing automatically. I often wonder if people actually read their posts. We all make mistakes, but if I can’t understand your writing, I won’t want to continue reading.

I try to read my posts from bottom up. Not backward, but starting with the last paragraph, then upwards. That way, my brain doesn’t quite know what to expect. It’s so hard to edit your own work, and I feel for bloggers who are just starting out and haven’t developed a system for proofing yet.

Sites like these are the absolute best! I enjoy reading blogs even before I started my own and it was always nice when bloggers wouldn’t have ads all over their website. I like that the social buttons are placed at the bottom of each post too. What I like most is the clean template, easy to read and navigate!

I think I share some of your blogging preferences! Being easy to read is number one for me. I have a pretty big screen but sometimes tiny text and strange formatting can make blogs and articles difficult to follow.

It also doesn’t help that my vision is getting worse as I get older. Before I started blogging, I had 20/20 vision. After years of staring at a computer screen, though, I need reading glasses. Any fonts and styles that make things easier on my eyes are wonderful in my book.